The truth about big government

[GuitarDaddy]

Are soldiers included in that number or just civilians?

Almost certainly not. No way 652,000 can include soldiers. I think we have more soldiers than that deployed overseas


Yep, acording to wiki US armed forces soldiers including reserves number almost 2.5 million. 1.6mil active and 865,000 reserves

 

[Nebor]

Just civilian workers. Active duty is around 1.5 million.

In that case, some of those people can definitely be cut. DA (Department of the Army) civilians are by and large worthless. They're leaches that do nothing most of the time, treat soldiers like crap and get paid well to do it.

Without going into too much detail, I found a guy on post today, totally by chance, squirreled away in an office far away from my unit, who's ENTIRE JOB is to handle shipping of my unit's stuff to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sounds like a tough job, right? Except we're a non-deploying unit. When we go overseas, we only take what we can carry as individuals. I was down at the movement office on another matter, but when I saw a vague reference to my unit on the assigned parking spot sign with a BMW 335i convertible in the space, and a civilian DOD tag on the windshield, I thought it'd be worth finding him.

DA civilians make me want to punch puppies 90% of the time.

 

[Howard]

171k too many in DHS

EDIT: Well, maybe 150k too many...

 

[fskimospy]

In that case, some of those people can definitely be cut. DA (Department of the Army) civilians are by and large worthless. They're leaches that do nothing most of the time, treat soldiers like crap and get paid well to do it.

Without going into too much detail, I found a guy on post today, totally by chance, squirreled away in an office far away from my unit, who's ENTIRE JOB is to handle shipping of my unit's stuff to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sounds like a tough job, right? Except we're a non-deploying unit. When we go overseas, we only take what we can carry as individuals. I was down at the movement office on another matter, but when I saw a vague reference to my unit on the assigned parking spot sign with a BMW 335i convertible in the space, and a civilian DOD tag on the windshield, I thought it'd be worth finding him.

DA civilians make me want to punch puppies 90% of the time.

Well it depends, a lot of technical jobs need civilian expertise because active duty personnel just don't know enough about the systems to be effective.

 

[Patranus]

Big government on the federal level is anything that the states/individuals cannot do on their own, mainly anything not related to national defense.

 

[Hacp]

You need to look at salaries.
Step 1: No government employee should be making over the national average. Period. If you were a basketweaving major, you should be making 50% of the national average.
Step 2: eliminate all pensions that government workers have.

 

[sunzt]

You need to look at salaries.
Step 1: No government employee should be making over the national average. Period. If you were a basketweaving major, you should be making 50% of the national average.
Step 2: eliminate all pensions that government workers have.

Great way to attract talent!

 

[her209]

And which of those are specifically mentioned in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution? HUD? DoE? HHS? DoEd?

Why does it have to specifically mentioned?

It says clearly:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

 

[her209]

The thing is when most people talk of "big government" I believe they are mainly talking about the size and scope of government laws/power in our daily lives first, and overall tax rates second, and not so much counting heads of government employees. Salaries and such is a tiny part of the budget.

This doesn't tell you all that much. Big government is about the scale and scope of government, not how many employees there are. Look at social security, its the largest government program but the number of employees is tiny.

We are also only focusing on number of employees.
Thats just one dimension.
What about the spending programs, the new regulations, new government agencies, new wars, new scopes of federal control over our lives?

Big government is more than just "a lot of people working for the government".
Its what they do and how much power and money they have.

Big government on the federal level is anything that the states/individuals cannot do on their own, mainly anything not related to national defense.

If you really believe that then all complaints of the number of public jobs added under Obama is null and void.

Example: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/22/federal-workforce-continues-to-grow-under-obama-budget/

 

[her209]

You know what else Article 1, Section 8 doesn't mention? The Air Force.

Lets get rid of that too, it's not specifically in the Constitution!

It also doesn't specifically mention well-known agencies like the NSA, CIA, FBI.

:hmm:

 

[cwjerome]

If you really believe that then all complaints of the number of public jobs added under Obama is null and void.

Example: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/02/22/federal-workforce-continues-to-grow-under-obama-budget/

It seems to me that the number of public jobs is a relatively minor concern when addressing the concept of "big government." That's my attitude and I believe the attitude of the majority of reasonable people who decry big government.

Those that blow this specific issue up into a major argument are foolishly missing the big picture. You can have an oppressive government regardless of the number of people who work for it.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

You know what else Article 1, Section 8 doesn't mention? The Air Force.

Lets get rid of that too, it's not specifically in the Constitution!

You techincally could. It would just fall back under the umbrella of the Amry where it started from.

 

[fskimospy]

You techincally could. It would just fall back under the umbrella of the Amry where it started from.

Depends on how far you want to take it. Army in its definition back then didn't include airplanes, so if we want to take the originalist thing, that could be problematic.

Regardless, I think it's silly to think that the Constitution prohibits an Air Force. It also shows the silliness of reading the Constitution literally though.